"AI" is the wrong term, and I hate that it's been implanted. These are prediction models.

Prediction models can be extremely beneficial. Think of weather forecasting, for example. Being able to predict power usage across a grid to prevent failures and increase efficiency and properly deploy resources. Even LLMs can be useful to give you a starting point for discovering information that you are short on. (Don't trust implicitly, double check, but you'll have new search terms to use.)

Remember, too, that the publicly available models are relatively weak. Specialized models with well-curated training data are going to be much better at doing their specific prediction. And we're still in the beginning of this era. It's going to be crazy in ten years.

With regard to resource intensity, it'sy understanding that creation of images and video is what demands the most computing power. And that kind of usage sucks all the way around.